too rich?

[DeistPaladin]

Perhaps we are mis-communicating. I'm talking about the erosion of the middle class in America and how we're starting to resemble a 3rd world economy with a top 1% living in gated communities while the rest live in squalor.

Take my own business as an example. I run a dental prosthetic manufacturing business. My bread and butter is from the middle class. When they have jobs and dental insurance, I do well.

When I came into this business in the 90s, growth seemed relatively effortless. As long as your quality was good, your service was dependable and you put a lot of work and care into your lab, you were virtually set to grow each year. Hiring experienced technicians was impossible, since all of them were already employed. Any time I did hire an experienced tech, I quickly found out there was a reason they were available for hire (drug problem, anger problem, etc). I had to hire inexperienced trainees and train my own techs.

To take one department as a prime example, we peaked in 2001 in our partial denture metal frame castings, with 6 technicians and 18-20 frames cast each working day.

I look back nostalgically on those good times as the days of flowing milk and honey.

Today, I employ 3 technicians in that department. We produce about 10 frames a day. The department's production has been sliced in half since our peak. Meanwhile, I have experienced technicians knocking on my door all the time, unsolicited, asking if I'm hiring. I have to turn them away, taking an application to keep on file "just in case". As if.

What happened?

Did a local competitor grab up my framework business? No. In fact, not one of my local competitors even casts their own frames.

So where did the business go? I know exactly where.

China.

A national corporation offers to ship frameworks off to China to have them done at a fraction of a price, so low that I can't possibly compete with it. There are other corporations that will do the same.

This is the new normal in America.

[jonb]

This is the problem with the global market, If a small business or individual could lower its housing costs, cost of power, communications, and exchange rates it would be able to compete.
Since those factors are controlled by a small sector which has the ability to choose which areas will or will not be competitive. I cannot see a free market working much into the future, even if what we presently have constitutes a free market.

[Tiberius]

Now, shall we get back to the Oxfam report?

No, you're continually avoiding my question. You have been avoiding it for many pages now. You can't just accuse me of making up an association with your use of the word "tax" and government tax, and then refuse to explain which definition of the word "tax" you were using.

If I'm misinterpreting your words, why not explain what they actually meant? The only reason I can think of is that you've realized that you were in the wrong, and for whatever reason you don't want to admit it. Luckily for me, your words are there in your post, and anyone can read this thread to see that you've dodged my question whilst continually accusing me of being in the wrong. The difference is, when I'm accused of being wrong, I either admit it or refute my accuser.

[Mister Agenda]

Hundreds of millions of Chinese have gotten out of absolute poverty (as defined by the UN) over the last 20 years, significantly reducing the global percentage of people in extreme poverty. This has a lot to do with manufacturing moving to China (and India, which has seen similar gains, together they have 700 million people who have gotten out of extreme poverty in the last 20 years). Part of the cost of this has been loss of manufacturing jobs in developed countries. Presumably as costs rise in China and India, we will finally turn to Africa, where some of the world's fastest-growing economies are to be found.

Preserving American jobs comes at a cost. I'm not a nationalist, if ten million American jobs are lost and force 20 million people into relative poverty (would not be considered poverty at all in an undeveloped country) and 50 million people are raised to moderate poverty in the process, I call that a net gain, and I am probably overstating the poverty resulting from outsourcing and understating the reduction of poverty resulting from it. Workers in undeveloped countries working in outsourced jobs are certainly underpaid by American standards, but typically are making double the prevailing wages of their region and learning manufacturing skills.

[jonb]

Dear Mister Agenda, if that was the only process in action, in truth I might be a little vexed that I am in the set of people that are going to loose some prosperity, but I would be able to take some solace that it would be producing what could be seen as a more equitable world. However what I am worried about is that control is being reduced to a small element which have the capability to control the relative competitivity of different areas. That capability to control without responsibility has to be thought about.

Tibs do you know anything about art?

[Shell B]

Jon, that is borderline flaming, dude. Why ask him if he knows anything about art other than to annoy him? Anyway, what did you mean by tax? I would like to comment in here, but I now have no idea what the fuck you were trying to say.

[jonb]

Tibs is trying to force me to do something which I object to doing, this is because of the philosophy I adhere to which is also about my art. Whether or not you do or do not understand what I write is not my responsibly, my words are there as I want them to be. I have no concerns how others interpret them, but I will also not be told what I meant in writing them.
Now are we going to throw any more accusations about?

[Violet]

Indeed... one can be too rich, like this cake:



But this cake is amazing, and even though you only get a small taste of its richness before you can't stomach any more of it: it's not bad.

Granted, there are a few poor chefs in our world... but most people who make a beautiful cake such as this wanted to do so anyway. I'm not a fan of actively taxing the rich, I like when they give as freely as some of us poorer people give... but I don't hate them or even envy them for having so much.

Knowing me... I would use maybe a million of it and throw the rest to people who'd actually have a desire/use for that much pointlessness.

[jonb]

The is a problem with internationally held wealth, that it gives the ability to choose where the money is Taxed (yes I said the word meaning governmental tax), however there is no international government so the supper rich can choose where to pay, unlike DeistPaladin or anybody else with a small to medium sized business. This creates an uneven playing field. I am sure Deist's business would be a lot more profitable if he could choose to pay his taxes in Lichtenstein, but he does not have that choice. However a business like Starbucks which stretches across international boundaries, can choose which part of its manufacturing and services are said to be making a profit, and by that means choose where it is taxed. Consequently it reports its shops in Britain have made no profit, the only profit it makes are where is head offices are which coincidently is in a minimal tax jurisdiction it does not even make a profit from manufacturing or distribution. However it does not close down its unprofitable shops, distribution, and manufacturing arms and just keep a small office which the company says makes a profit, we can only speculate why.
So when we look at the super rich, we find we have no equality with them, they can make choices that simply are not available to us. The Lee family who own Samsung (also own as it was put to me by one of their assistants) a good part of south Asia, as well as having interests in every market internationally), have choices that we do not have. There are also those in the super rich group that own their own personal fiefdoms, Barain etc who are entirely independent.
This situation looks exactly to me like France before the revolution. Where the first and second estates (the Aristocracy, and the church) do not pay Taxes, so the burden of the state entirely rests on the third estate us.

[Shell B]

Tibs is trying to force me to do something which I object to doing, this is because of the philosophy I adhere to which is also about my art. Whether or not you do or do not understand what I write is not my responsibly, my words are there as I want them to be. I have no concerns how others interpret them, but I will also not be told what I meant in writing them.
Now are we going to throw any more accusations about?

Oh, okay. You have artistic objections to explaining what you meant. That makes perfect sense.

So, in short, you did mean a government tax and now you've backed yourself into a corner. The end.